One of the many joys of watching “Mad Men” is seeing how worried — not — the parents were about their kids, at least in this fictional portrayal of the early ’60s. The kids are told to run off and play in another room so mom can have coffee with a friend. They’re put in a playpen…so mom can have coffee with a friend. Maybe I just like the show because I love having coffee with a friend (and think the kids can pretty much take care of themselves while I do). Anyway, in the best scene, a girl of…
Author: cagefreekids
Readers — I’m excited to introduce a new blogger on this site, Denise Gonzalez-Walker. Denise lives in Seattle with her husband and two kids. She regularly blogs about education at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Chalkboard blog and is a member of Seattle Mom Blogs. Here are her thoughts on childhood safety — and she is real expert, as you’ll see. Enjoy! — Lenore SAFETY FIRST? BY DENISE GONZALEZ-WALKER My life is one of contrasts. On one hand, I’m the mother of two bright, active kids — a 4 year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. Both kids love to run, jump, climb and…
The overhead train schedule in that French town said the 8:05 was going where I was going. I thought. But if you’re a college kid backpacking through Europe and you don’t realize Geneva is not spelled “Geneva” in French (it’s Geneve), you just might hop on the 8:05 to “Genoa” and find yourself in Italy, alone, instead of in Switzerland, meeting up with a bunch of friends. And suddenly you have a whole new adventure, and a new set of friends and if you never eat that famous Swiss chocolate, who cares? You’re in Italy ! Getting lost is not…
So, after dithering for a mere five years or so (and blogging about it, below), I finally got my boys — 10 and 12 — a skateboard. I didn’t dither out of laziness. Well, not just laziness. I really avoided it out of fear. The idea of a kid upside down in the air, no matter what the centrifugal force at work, sounded pretty bad. (And those posters of Tony Hawk!) But anyway — the whole point of this site is that if we don’t start examining our fears and whether they really make any sense, we’ll just keep cutting…
It’s nice to push for this whole Free Range movement, but the fact is, sometimes I’m about as free and fun as a frozen chicken nugget. That’s because we all have certain things that push our buttons — especially the buttons marked, “IRRATIONAL” and “FEAR.” We are so sure these things are going to hurt our kids, we can’t even think straight. And that’s a fear we pass on. “Look mom! Shrek is stupid!” said my 10-year-old as we were walking down a city street the other day. “What?” He pointed to a billboard featuring the green monster on a…
Remember the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” that used to run in Mad? That’s what we need here at Free Range Kids. As a recent email from “Skyscraper” put it: “This site needs a seperate idea page for what to say when others question the €˜free-range’ parenting approach.” So true. What doyou say when someone thinks you’re nuts for letting your 8-year-old jump rope by herself on your driveway, or for letting your pre-teen walk to school? I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews and I turn into a self-righteous bore when the host inevitably asks, “How could…